Existence Is Evidence of Immortality

Time may be infinite in both directions. If it is, then, if persons could live at most once in all of time, the probability that you would be alive now would be zero. But if persons can live more than once, the probability that you would be alive now would be nonzero. Since you are alive now, with certainty, either the past is finite, or persons can live more than once

Postmortem Analysis of Decayed Online Social Communities: Cascade Pattern Analysis and Prediction

Recently, many online social networks, such as MySpace, Orkut, and Friendster, have faced inactivity decay of their members, which contributed to the collapse of these networks. The reasons, mechanics, and prevention mechanisms of such inactivity decay are not fully understood. In this work, we analyze decayed and alive sub-websites from the StackExchange platform. The analysis mainly focuses on the inactivity cascades that occur among the members of these communities. We provide measures to understand the decay process and statistical analysis to extract the patterns that accompany the inactivity decay. Additionally, we predict cascade size and cascade virality using machine learning. The results of this work include a statistically significant difference of the decay patterns between the decayed and the alive sub-websites. These patterns are mainly: cascade size, cascade virality, cascade duration, and cascade similarity. Additionally, the contributed prediction framework showed satisfactory prediction results compared to a baseline predictor. Supported by empirical evidence, the main findings of this work are: (1) the decay process is not governed by only one network measure; it is better described using multiple measures; (2) the expert members of the StackExchange sub-websites were mainly responsible for the activity or inactivity of the StackExchange sub-websites; (3) the Statistics sub-website is going through decay dynamics that may lead to it becoming fully-decayed; and (4) decayed sub-websites were originally less resilient to inactivity decay, unlike the alive sub-websites

The current management of penetrating cardiac trauma

Includes bibliographical references.The vast majority of patients with penetrating cardiac injuries do not reach the hospital alive as the pre-hospital mortality rate for these injuries is in the region of 86%. The patients that do reach the hospital alive are potential survivors and it is obviously crucial that any cardiac injury is detected and managed appropriately. Most of these injuries present with either cardiac tamponade or hypovolaemic shock and are relatively straightforward to diagnose and require immediate surgery. There is, however, a group of patients that are relatively stable with an underlying cardiac injury and it is in these patients that a potential or occult cardiac injury needs to be identified

The disconcerting popularity of “justice populaire” in the Eastern DR Congo

Mob justice, or justice populaire as it is called in the DR Congo, is the practice by which citizens “take the law into their own hands” and collectively kill alleged perpetrators of crime or witchcraft, for example by beating or stoning them to death, or by burning them alive. The forms that this practice takes and the circumstances in which it is manifested are highly variable, with killings being sometimes more orchestrated, for instance when involving youth gangs or vigilantes, and sometimes more spontaneous

Embryos as Patients? Medical Provider Duties in the Age of CRISPR/Cas9

The CRISPR/Cas9 genome engineering platform is the first method of gene editing that could potentially be used to treat genetic disorders in human embryos. No past therapies, genetic or otherwise, have been intended or used to treat disorders in existent embryos. Past procedures performed on embryos have exclusively involved creation and implantation (e.g., in-vitro fertilization) or screening and selection of already-healthy embryos (e.g., preimplantation genetic diagnosis). A CRISPR/Cas9 treatment would evade medical malpractice law due to the early stage of the intervention and the fact that it is not a treatment for the mother. In most jurisdictions, medical professionals owe no duty to pre-viable fetuses or embryos as such, but will be held liable for negligent treatment of the mother if the treatment causes injury to a born-alive child. This issue brief discusses the science of CRISPR/Cas9, the background legal status of human embryos, and the case for considering genetically engineered embryos as patients for purposes of medical malpractice law

Effect of marital status on death rates. Part 1: High accuracy exploration of the Farr-Bertillon effect

The Farr-Bertillon law says that for all age-groups the death rate of married people is lower than the death rate of people who are not married (i.e. single, widowed or divorced). Although this law has been known for over 150 years, it has never been established with great accuracy. This even let some authors argue that it was a statistical artefact. It is true that the data must be selected and analyzed with great care, especially for age groups of small size such as widowers under 25. The observations reported in this paper were selected and designed in the same way as experiments in physics, that is to say with the objective of minimizing the error bars for all age-groups. It will be seen that data appropriate for mid-age groups may be unsuitable for young age groups and vice versa. The investigation led to the following results. (1) The FB effect is basically the same for men and women, except that on average it is about 20\% stronger for men. (2) There is a marked difference between single or divorced persons on the one hand, for whom the effect is largest around the age of 45, and widowed persons on the other hand, for whom the effect is largest around the age of 25. (3) When different causes of death are distinguished, the effect is largest for suicide and smallest for cancer. (4) For young widowers the death rates are up to 10 times higher than for married persons of same age. This extreme form of the FB effect will be referred to as the "young widower effect." A possible connection between the FB effect and Martin Raff's "Stay alive" effect for cells in an organism is discussed in the last section.Comment: 30 pages, 17 figure

Let the dice play God

We define life as the amplification of quantum uncertainty up to macroscopic scales. A living being is any amplifier that achieves this goal. We argue that everything we know about life can be explained from this idea. We study a ladder mechanism to estimate the probability that the amplification occurs spontaneously in nature. The amplification mechanism is so sensitive to small variations of its own parameters that it acts as a bifurcation itself, i.e. it implies that the universe is either everywhere dead or alive wherever possible. Since the first option is excluded by the existence of life on earth, we infer that the universe hosts a huge number of inhabited planets (possibly one per star on average). We also investigate models of conscious and unconscious learning processes, as well as the structure of the brain and evolution. Finally, we address the problem of creating artificial life

The balance of growth and risk in population dynamics

Essential to each other, growth and exploration are jointly observed in populations, be it alive such as animals and cells or inanimate such as goods and money. But their ability to move, crucial to cope with uncertainty and optimize returns, is tempered by the space/time properties of the environment. We investigate how the environment shape optimal growth and population distribution in such conditions. We uncover a trade-off between risks and returns by revisiting a common growth model over general graphs. Our results reveal a rich and nuanced picture: fruitful strategies commonly lead to risky positions, but this tension may nonetheless be alleviated by the geometry of the explored space. The applicability of our conclusions is subsequently illustrated over an empirical study of financial data.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Analisis Faktor Risiko Status Kematian Neonatal Studi Kasus Kontrol di Kecamatan Losari Kabupaten Brebes Tahun 2006

Background: The efforts to reach the national target to decreasing infant mortality, what in this time still become governmental priority programs. Nationally, mortality rate in this last decade had decreased excessively, from 50 per a thousand alive births in 2001 becoming 39 per a thousand alive births in 2005. The number revealed if seen at mortality neonatal still high enough.Method: This is an analytical survey research with case-control approach. Research subjects consists of 29 women having infant which die at neonatal age as a case group, and 29 women having alive infant passed a neonatal period, as a control group. Source of data obtained from secondary data to verbal autopsy record, history of pregnant woman and confinement note from public health center (Puskesmas). Data analyzing by univariate and bivariate analysis. Statistical test by Chi Square test that significance rate determined if p -value less than 0.05 and calculation of Odds Ratio (OR>1).Result: Result of analysis indicates that mother age (p = 0.0023 and OR = 7.69), parity (p =0.0006 and OR = 8.25), helper of confinement (p = 0.044 and OR = 6.07), born baby weight (p = 0.016 and OR=6,12) and condition of baby breathing effort (p= 0.001 and OR = 7.85), significantly risked to neonatal status. It is conclude that mother age, parity, helper ofconfinement, born baby weight and condition of baby breathing effort is risked to neonatal status. It is suggested to maturing marriage age and management of birth at healthy reproduction age, increasing of neonatal call so that can decreasing mortality rate

Closed-loop Habitation Air Revitalization Model for Regenerative Life Support Systems

The primary function of any life support system is to keep the crew alive by providing breathable air, potable water, edible food, and for disposal of waste. In a well-balanced or regenerative life support system, the various components are each using what is available and producing what is needed by other components so that there will always be enough chemicals in the form in which they are needed. Humans are not just users, but also one of the participating parts of the system. If a system could continuously recycle the original chemicals, this would make it virtually a Closed-loop Habitation (CH). Some difficulties in trying to create a miniature version of a CH are briefly discussed. In a miniature CH, a minimal structure must be provided and the difference must be made up by artificial parts such as physicochemical systems that perform the conversions that the Earth can achieve naturally. To study the interactions of these parts, a computer model was designed that simulates a miniature CH with emphasis on the air revitalization part. It is called the Closed-loop Habitation Air Revitalization Model (CHARM)